HIV/AIDS in Young Adult Novels: An Annotated Bibliography

This book identifies and assesses more than 90 young adult novels that include HIV/AIDS content. Each entry in the bibliography contains an annotation that summarizes the plot and how HIV/AIDS is depicted in the story, an indication of the accuracy of the HIV/AIDS content, a note on how central HIV/AIDS is to the story, and an evaluation of the literary quality of the…
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Overview

This book identifies and assesses more than 90 young adult novels that include HIV/AIDS content. Each entry in the bibliography contains an annotation that summarizes the plot and how HIV/AIDS is depicted in the story, an indication of the accuracy of the HIV/AIDS content, a note on how central HIV/AIDS is to the story, and an evaluation of the literary quality of the book.

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Editorial Reviews

VOYA - C.J. Bott

In November of 1987, Randy Shilts published And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (St. Martin's), the first book to raise awareness with facts about HIV/AIDS, and though progress has been made in treatment, a cure has not yet been found. Gross, Goldsmith, and Carruth decided to research how young adult novels deal with HIV/AIDS. Using the following criteria: a main character in the young adult range (eleven to nineteen), at least one character who is either HIV positive or has AIDS, written in English, and published between 1981 and 2008, they found ninety-three young adult novels for their study. Each of the ninety-three titles are fully annotated and evaluated in the second half of the book. Their workthoroughly researched, critically analyzed, superbly written, and accessible to the largest audienceleads to their conclusion that "the body of literature analyzed in this study is not doing all it might to demonstrate that youth and people they care about are at risk for HIV infection." Books set in Africa and Papua New Guinea, however, expose the realities these areas face in dealing with HIV. They conclude that more teen books are needed that portray the realities of HIV/AIDS in our country. Reviewer: C.J. Bott

Children's Literature - Paula McMillen

HIV/AIDS is still a significant threat to young adults and the authors employ recent statistics from the CDC to make their case for undertaking this examination of YA fiction. This book is comprised of two main parts: the first half is the narrative description of the authors' research and findings about how HIV/AIDS is presented in YA novels published from 1981-2008; the second half is an annotated bibliography of the books examined for the study. Young adults, as defined for this study, are between eleven and nineteen years of age and must be both the target audience and the main characters of the books chosen. Additionally the fiction had to be in English (including translations) and have at least one character who is HIV positive or has AIDS. A total of ninety-three books were analyzed for accuracy of information about HIV/AIDS, literary quality, and the centrality of HIV/AIDS to the story. Additionally, each title was individually examined to determine the relationship of the AIDS/HIV character to the protagonist, how AIDS was contracted by those characters, the protagonist's fears concerning HIV/AIDS, information that is conveyed about how (or whether) HIV/AIDS can be controlled, and what the "fate" of the HIV/AIDS character(s) is, i.e., do they live or die. This data is detailed in the research/results narrative; tabular presentations of this data would have been welcome. As a body of literature, the YA novels fall short. Unreasonable fears predominate, and very little attention is given to education and prevention strategies. Overall, the authors find that the "information provided is incomplete and weak in terms of communicating the risks, issues and facts that young adults need to keep themselves and people important to them safe" (p. 113).There are, of course, notable exceptions, and this is the value of the annotated bibliography. Although the individual chapters are annotated and contain a bibliography, a central research bibliography would have been valuable; as would an alphabetic list of the titles reviewed (annotations are organized alphabetically by author). An index is provided but fails to lead the reader to discussions of the reviewed titles in the research narrative. In spite of these gaps, this is a comprehensive and essential reference tool that should be in every school and public library serving young adult populations. Reviewer: Paula McMillen, Ph.D.